Born From a Wish
by Spider RedNight
Summary: "...Ernest", he exhaled finally. "Hemingway?" She asked rather naively. He paused for a moment. "Baldwin," He said dryly. The Born from a Wish sub-scenario from Silent Hill 2. No pairings, language, or anything that bad, really.


He saw shapes. Faint shapes that flitted in and out of the darkness as he kept his eyes closed; the insides of his eyelids held more vision, more memories than the walls he could stare at all day. His eyes danced under their eyelids as more shapes appeared, then disappeared.

He knew what these shapes were. He extended his arm, fingers groping at the air as he furrowed his brow. Why did the shaped move away from him? Every time he reached out to the shapes, they escaped from his fingers. He lowered his arm and exhaled softly; he remembered his eyes were closed and a disheartened feeling swept over his long frame. He kept his eyes closed because the things he saw, the memories that stained his mind, weren't on the walls in front of him. They weren't on the walls, or on the old-fashioned couch that sat in front of him, wasting away as moths tore at its insides like starving jackals to a fresh corpse. They weren't even in the books that surrounded him on their dusty shelves. It was so long ago, he doesn't even remember what was in those books. But he remembered why he kept his eyes closed and the shapes he saw on the insides of his eyelids.

The man leaned back against the couch, propping his arms up on the back of the couch as he exhaled with a groan. He kept his eyes shut tight and the shapes became fainter as he exposed his face to more dreary sunlight that streamed through the opposite window. Ten years of this. Every day. Why had he chosen a specific parlor? He wasn't sure; probably because of the smell of antique. He admitted to having no clue what half his house looked like; he didn't move entirely that often, especially to places that didn't – COULDN'T – matter. He felt the muscles relaxing in his shoulders and neck and he eased his clenched teeth. His eyes slowed in movement and his breathing, which was somewhat uneasy, fell into a rhythmic tempo that was content for him. Content? What was—

Suddenly, he heard footsteps. His eyes snapped open and revealed piercing blue irises, tiny black pupils dotting the centers. He turned his head over one of his shoulders; the footsteps were coming closer. He turned his entire torso this time, taking one of his arms off the back of the couch. His eyes glanced to the knob on the door that was less than five feet behind him. Damn, it was unlocked. Who would even be in his house? No one had been in the town in what seemed like forever anyway, why would they… open the door?

Indeed, the door was slowly starting to creak open. With a fluid motion and utter silence, he leapt over the back of the couch and grappled for the doorknob, slamming it before he had a chance to see who – or what – was opening it. He used his other hand and locked the door, withdrawing the key from the hole and tossing it onto the couch behind him. He kept the knob turned and held it tightly though, as if afraid whoever was on the other side had the strength to wrench the door open regardless of whether or not it was locked.

However, nothing burst through the door, no one took a weapon to it… simply knocking. "Is somebody… there?" asked a voice as they started to knock on the hardened door. He kept a firm grasp on the doorknob, creasing his brow slightly with every knock. "Open up," the voice said, jiggling the knob a bit. He glanced down and noticed his hand moving but his gaze quickly went back up to the door as the woman continued to knock. He was hoping she'd lose interest in the door and just… go away and ransack the REST of his house; God only knew what she had already picked up and he frankly didn't care as long as she didn't bug him anymore. "Hello?" asked the voice, apparently not having left. Her voice was grating on his eardrums and he narrowed his eyes at the door as she continued to knock. Every knock entered his head and pounded on his brain, every movement the knob made shook his arm. He closed his eyes and put his spare hand to his temple. But wait! Did the pounding stop? Had she finally given… nope, she was still at it.

"Stop it." He snapped, finally fed up with this woman. "You're disturbing me," he added, sounding less aggressive this time, but still surly enough that he didn't want to be messed with. He made his point and she stopped knocking, but he was surprised when she instead exhaled, sounding relieved.

"Thank God. I finally found somebody," she said through the door, apparently happy that he wasn't a monster or even inhuman sounding. He raised his eyebrows slightly and released his grip on the doorknob, his palm sweating after clutching the metal so tightly. "Can you open the door?" she asked, though not aggressively and started to move the doorknob again. He tightened his fingers around the knob again and she rapped on the door a few more times.

"No," he growled, sounding defiant; this woman wasn't coming in and he was going to make sure she knew that. He didn't have to be friendly with her. He didn't know who she was or why she was there, only that she was invading his house and demanding that he open the doors. "But why?" the voice asked and he could feel her letting go of the knob. He exhaled, relaxing his shoulders again.

"Is it really necessary for me to answer all your tedious questions?" he replied, letting go of the doorknob at last. He rubbed the palm of his hand on his jeans, staring at the door for a response. "Yes," she replied persistently, tapping on the door one or two more times. He was secure in that she couldn't get in and he crossed his arms, leaning on the door.

"Oh, I didn't know that," he scoffed, rolling his eyes. "I wanna be alone," He explained, sounding more exhausted than anything, as if him holding the door shut from a woman took all the energy out of him. "Other people just irritate me." He glanced away from the door, part of him hoping she'd get frustrated and leave after his indication that he suggested she was irritating. He had been alone for so long, the knowledge that someone else was even in the same house as him nearly drove him insane with anger and frustration. Whether it was that he seemed too tired to be angry at her or not caring enough to be, he wasn't sure, but for some reason, he chose not to open the door and smack her upside the head to leave… Now that he thought about it, he probably couldn't have brought himself to do that, anyway.

He heard the woman sigh. "I just want to see another human face," she said and he noted a certain sadness in her voice. Maybe she'd been alone for a long time too and they were just kindred spirits in an empty, swaying town of misty fog, pitch black darkness and rust that rotted the very fabric of time. He shook his head slowly and remained adamant that he wouldn't open the door. "Do you know what's happening in this town?" She asked through the door. "There's no one here… just monsters." She added. He took this time to glance out his foggy window on the far side of the room. He could hear things at night while he sat in dour contemplation, screaming and moaning as the figures crawled on the streets in the darkness. He wasn't sure if they were truly monsters or just people; the extent of insanity in the town may or may not have extended into his own mind. Perhaps he was in denial and the town was perfectly fine.

"Yes, I know," He nodded slightly, keeping his clear blue eyes on the window. "But so what?" He shrugged, discontinuing leaning on the door and he casually paced back and forth, keeping his gaze on the grey sky. "It has nothing to do with me. No one here means there's no one to disturb me." He cast a quick glance at the door, his pacing slow and deliberate.

"You want to be alone in this insane asylum?" she asked, as if he didn't know what he was talking about. He closed his eyes and stopped pacing. "Yes, exactly," he admitted, uncrossing his arms.

The two said nothing for a period, each reflecting their thoughts. He was thinking about why he valued his solitude, why he hated it, why he enjoyed, yet despised the loneliness. Did he have a reason? He supposed he did, but time was a river and it swept through the banks of his mind, taking with it the memories and reasons. "But how can you say that it's this town that's insane?" He inquired, drawing upon what he thought earlier about his mind being a problem instead of the entire town. "Perhaps it is we who are insane," He suggested with a grim tone. "Both of us…" he reached up and ran his slender fingers through his messy, dirty blond hair. "Hopelessly insane." He messed up his hair even more before glancing at the door with a defeated look, his arms falling limply to his sides. "Are you satisfied?" He asked morosely. "Would you leave me alone?" He almost exhaled, any and all emotions that might've been left in his soft voice draining out.

"My name is… Maria," the woman introduced herself hesitantly, almost as though she forgot her name for a moment. He leaned against the wall, hoping that she'd go away now. "What's your name?" She inquired. He paused for a long moment; did she not know whose house she was in? He almost roared and pounded on the door to scare her away when she started getting impatient and jiggling the handle as she knocked on the door some more, but for some reason, he just… couldn't bring himself to care that much.

"Ernest," he told her finally and she stopped her noise. There was a brief pause. "Hemingway?" She asked and he put his head on the door in exasperation. Yes, he was Ernest Hemingway and he lived in Silent Hill. This woman must've been blond. That was equivalent to someone asking a man named Harry if his last name was Houdini. "Baldwin," He added dryly. Ernest Hemingway, honestly.

"Ernest…" She repeated his name and he closed his eyes, filled with calm for a split second as someone other than him said his name for the first time in ten years. "I'll be back." His eyes snapped open and he stared sideways at the door. She was coming BACK? He thought he had been angry enough that it would've indefinitely driven her away… Well, for all he knew, she COULD'VE been leaving because she was tired of his question-dodging behaviour. He heard her walking away and he was suddenly filled with a surge of emotions, though he didn't understand why or about what. He looked up and questions flooded his mind, questions that he didn't know the answer to or even how to word them properly. Word them to whom? Maria was gone.

He balled his hand into a fist and pounded on the wall with strength that seemed unlike someone of his stature. He heard a faint clanging noise and he got to his feet hastily. Did he knock something over without realizing it? He wanted to leave and inspect the noise, but he could only guess where SHE was. He glanced behind him at the other door that was in the room and, deciding that he shouldn't be there anymore lest she get even more impatient and start breaking the door down, carefully picked up the key and placed it back in the door he was protecting. He looked forward without seeing anything, wondering in his mind where he could retreat to next.

He found the place in his mind, gathered what was left of his mind, and started walking until the wall swallowed him up completely, followed by darkness.


End file.
